Make iTunes create a Library entry containing everything

Jan 09, '09 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: DougAdams

In the old days of iTunes 6 and earlier, the iTunes Source pane would contain a Library playlist that listed all the audio and video in your iTunes library. iTunes 7 removed this, and segmented the library into various 'master' libraries -- Music, Movies, TV Shows, and so on. If you want to bring that overall Library playlist back, you can set two hidden preference keys in the Terminal:

$ defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-library-playlist -bool TRUE
$ defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-library-playlist -bool FALSE
To be safe, you should quit iTunes before entering these commands in Terminal. Enter each line one at a time, followed by pressing the Return key (and don't enter the $). When you restart iTunes, you will have a Library playlist as the first entry in yourthe Library section of the iTunes sidebar. This playlist contains everything in your library. In fact, if you use iTunes' multiple library feature (hold Option while launching iTunes; read iTunes' help on mutliple libraries for more details), the name of this library playlist will be the name of your selected library, such as Main Library or Lossless Library, or whatever.

When the overall Library playlist is available in this fashion, you might want to be able to select it via AppleScript:
tell application "iTunes"
  set view of front browser window to library playlist 1
end tell
Just like the old days! To remove this new playlist, just reverse the values for the keys:
$ defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-library-playlist -bool FALSE
$ defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-library-playlist -bool TRUE
Or, just delete the keys:
$ defaults delete com.apple.iTunes show-library-playlist
$ defaults delete com.apple.iTunes hide-library-playlist
Remember to quit iTunes before running these commands.

Comments (18)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090109061958333